I didn't think I'd like it after watching the terrible trailer, which made it seem like something geared especially for teenagers into fantasy (and I'm neither). But then I got it anyway in a bundle. It turned out to be fun and charming actually. It draws heavy inspiration from the LucasArts era of adventure games. I didn't love some of the later parts of the game and thought some of the puzzles didn't make sense at all, but was generally pleased and entertained. Narratively and functionally it's very similar to Deponia (developed by the same company), except in a different setting, and with less humor. I find aspects of Romulus negative review (female character analysis) to be ridiculously true of both these games, but just because I can analyze something and find stereotypes and tropes doesn't mean I won't like the game as a whole. I guess I'm a sucker ;) At least a couple of the character dialogues also conditionally unlocked more dialogues options, meaning you could ask something that may unlock a new question, but it doesn't. So you have to go somewhere and do something else, and then ask the same question, get the same answer and only then you'd have a new question available. I don't think this is acceptable and factoring in some other completely nonsensical puzzles (not kidding) it encourages you to cheat instead of trying to solve things yourself if you get stuck. I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first adventure game, but if you can't get enough of the genre I think you'll like it.
The game hasn't aged well. The enemies won't fire unless they're at close range, and even then they will wait several seconds between each shot. You on the other hand can just spray them with bullets from a distance without caring about ammo or reloading. While the tempo and aesthetics are fun, shooting is just too simple (making it boring). It gets harder as the game progresses for other reasons, but I spent more time fighting the games glitches and quirks that the enemies. Some examples: 1. Pressing Esc ends the mission directly. No menu or prompt. This is frustrating since Esc commonly means "Pause and show menu", even in the past around the time this was released for PC. 2. Your men frequently get "stuck". If you walk too close to something (a building or trees for example) they will often get stuck like flies in a spider web and have to click several times to free yourself. Sometimes you have to walk close to a house to pick up a box of grenades, but get stuck, enemies come out of the house and fire at you, and you are standing right next to the grenades which isn't the best place... 3. There seems to be some glitch or glitches making enemies disappear. This happened to me at mission 2:2. I had to track back and look for enemies, but there weren't any. The level is linear and has no places to hide or miss. In the end I had to reset and the next time this didn't happen. Perhaps the enemy go "stuck" somewhere too? Also had a couple of issues I was able to resolve: * You can't run the game in fullscreen in Windows 10. There is an option for it using the Dosbox configurator, but it doesn't work. Instead use the Windows 95 or 98 compatibility mode (open the folder from Gog Galaxy and right click the executable). * If you make a mistake and reset the game (Esc) your men are still dead from the last mission, press Esc again to exit to the menu (you will lose your "phase" progress I think).
